As I write, there has recently been yet another terror attack in Britain – the third this year. Westminster and Manchester have both been targeted, and now the area around London Bridge as well.
It is reported that Prime Minister Theresa May has announced four
tough new measures to deal with Islamic terror, which are:
- Continue military action on ISIS in Syria and Iraq;
- Make it harder for terror attacks to be planned online;
- Tougher prison sentences for terrorists;
- Persuade Muslim extremists that pluralistic values are superior to their own ideology.
I have already outlined in previous posts why the first
measure is – to put it mildly - illogical.
The second measure makes sense, but time will tell how effective it will
be in practice. The third measure does
not make much sense, unfortunately.
Three recent terror attacks have ended with the perpetrators dead. One was killed by his own bomb, and the
others were shot by the police. If you plan
to carry out a terror attack in which you expect to die, then you are unlikely
to fear a prison sentence.
As for the final measure, I would be interested to know in
what way the government intends to persuade Muslim extremists that they are
wrong. It would of course help matters
if they could start by identifying who the Muslim extremists actually are.
A recent commentary by Katie Hopkins also takes the Prime
Minister to task on this issue, but is also rather short on solutions. Hopkins goes further than the Prime Minister,
by arguing that all people suspected of being sympathetic to ISIS should be
interned. A commentary by Ross Clark argues a similar case, and notes that:
Most were released but not before the authorities could be sure that they were not planning to assist the Nazis.
True, internment gained a bad name at the start of the Northern Ireland Troubles, when 2,000 suspected terrorists were rounded up – but failed to stop many others conducting a campaign of bombings and shootings.
But the difference then was that the suspects were held without trial.
We do not have to intern without trial Britons who have travelled to join IS because what they have done is a criminal offence.
This may be true, but surely the Britons who have fought for
ISIS abroad are only a part of the problem.
So far as I am aware, not one of the five men who carried out the three
recent terror attacks had ever fought for ISIS abroad.
I also wonder if either Hopkins or Clark would be keen on
the idea of internment if they themselves were likely to be interned. Let’s be clear about this. The British government in the 1940s interned
people they considered to be politically dangerous. Hitler’s National Socialist regime also
interned people they considered to be politically dangerous. The difference was what exactly?
Comments are welcome.
Related previous posts include:
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